1 More Chance! The Other Side: Akuma no Hime
by BonusParts
Summary: This is all Chie's fault...!  Yousuke laments the turn of his relationship with the brash young policewoman, and Kuma does some ass-kicking. Takes place during Ch27 of "1 More Chance!"


Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4, and all characters and likenesses belong to Atlus and are used here without permission. This is a work of fiction and any relation to actual events or persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

**This scene takes place during Arc III, Chapter 27 ("Hero") of my very long HanaChie romance, "1 More Chance!"** (found on my Author Page; please be cognizant of the warnings). If you haven't read _**1MC!**_ up to Chapter 27, this probably won't make a whole lot of sense to you; sorry about that.

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><p><strong>1 More Chance! (The Other Side)<br>**

**Akuma-no-Hime  
><strong>

**4 July 2017, Tuesday, Late Morning.**

Junes is the last place that Yousuke wants to be today, but he has little choice; Dad gave him control over this year's Tanabata matsuri, to see him sink or swim, and Yousuke is determined to show the old man that he can indeed swim. With the sharks, even, just like all of those salt-and-pepper-haired stuffed shirts who not-so-surreptitiously wrinkle their long noses at the idea of a newly-graduated assistant manager being able to make the rest of Junes Corporate sit up and take notice of this lonely store branch built in the sleepy hamlet that time forgot.

Because that will show his father that the four years and millions of yen spent on his university education were worth it (no matter what Dad thinks of the music electives and sleepless hours spent strumming his bass at band practice). Because that will show all of the doubters that _this_ Hanamura can make Junes valuable to the town, and not just an eyesore and a reason to shun him at the monthly Merchants' Association meetings. And because that will show everyone that he doesn't need Souji to make a name for himself, that he can be everything a man is supposed to be, everything that Chie could possibly want-

_Stop_, Yousuke suddenly tells himself with a shake of his head. _Don't think about her._

He's managed to sustain his anger at the perky young policewoman since yesterday morning, when she came by the house to tell him about the crazy, archaic challenge she'd initiated with her own father:

"You have to fight a duel for my hand," she said, as if it were perfectly acceptable, and even now he feels his blood boil at the words.

What the hell was she thinking, putting _his ass_ on the line in a fight with her dad? Why couldn't she just leave well enough alone? Things were going so well...!

He can hardly believe that it was only a few days ago that they spent that beautiful night at the ryokan together. He still remembers the taste of her sweat-salty lips against his, still remembers the heavy fragrance of the onsen's mineral bath on her skin, still remembers the strong squeeze of her legs and arms around his body, and the tight clench of her sex as he moved inside of her, making her clutch at his hair and back as she sighed and moaned and cried out his name -

_Stop!_ he tells himself (again), as he shakes his head (again).

Because Chie doesn't deserve the thought, doesn't deserve even a lingering consideration.

This is her fault, after all. She should never have told her parents about them, not without him there; she should never have thought up that moronic duel idea; she should never have even opened her big mouth-!

And Yousuke pauses, as he thinks about her mouth. The one that whispered such quiet and spurring sweetnesses to him, that he'd never heard from a woman before. The one that smiled at him with such fierce desire and such shameless boldness, that he'd never seen from a woman before. The one that kissed him, with such naked and unafraid affection, that he'd never felt from a woman before...

"Damn it!" he hisses to himself, and he tosses his pen to the top of his desk. He can't even stay angry at her, without his thoughts turning to that sweet, bold, brave mouth of hers, no matter how much trouble it's gotten him into...!

_I warned you_, Susanoo tells him of a sudden, and Yousuke grimaces, dropping one hand to the desk and rubbing the fingers of the other against his forehead.

"Shut up," he grumbles.

But his Persona has never been good at listening to orders (_"He _is_ your True Self,"_ Rise told him once with a giggle, after Yousuke complained about Susanoo's perpetual and annoying forthrightness), and so whistles to him again the same words Yousuke's heard surely a million times since that warm, quiet night on Chie's steps, when he pulled her close (close enough to kiss, then and there...if only he had the balls for it, which of course he didn't), and felt himself falling for her all over again:

_Demons are dangerous. A princess of demons more than most!_

"She's not-" Yousuke starts, and then he snorts a scoff. "Would you stop calling her that?"

_You started this_, Susanoo retorts. _All of that "hime-chan" talk...! I had nothing to do with that! _The Persona seems to humph, and Yousuke is certain that, if they were in Mayonaka right now and Susanoo was in front of him, the tall Persona would be crossing his arms in front of his chest, the spiral of his tsunami hair billowing back and forth like an up-blown streamer as he shakes his head.

_Hime-chan, indeed,_ Susanoo mutters now._ Akuma-no-hime is more like it!_

"You're just jealous because you know she could kick your ass," Yousuke replies, a smug smile tugging at his mouth...but the Persona has a smart ass reply for that one, too.

_And who am I?_ Susanoo prods, and Yousuke stops, because he knows the answer to that question.

"Don't." Yousuke warns beneath his breath, but Susanoo whistles it anyway:

_I am Thou._

Yousuke doesn't want to think about to what, exactly, his Persona is trying to enlighten him, this time, so he simply shoves himself away from his desk, muttering to himself, "I need some lunch." And he gets up, yanking his suit jacket from the back of his chair, trying to block out Susanoo's words by running through the standing menu in the food court. (Tamagoyaki sounds good, or okonomiyaki, if Misato's working the counter today; is she working, or is it Hitomi? He's supposed to be keeping track of his sisters' schedules – because Dad doesn't trust him with real staff timesheets, yet – but he can't remember...)

Susanoo, though, true to form, doesn't let him go so easily:

_That's right, little gaeru,_ the Persona hums, as though hovering at his shoulder._ Jump away. Just like always._

The reprimand doesn't make Yousuke stop, but he is halfway down the cement stairwell to the food court before he's even realized it, those words preoccupy him so.

Susanoo hasn't called him gaeru since...well, since ever, really. Jiraiya was the one who came up with that name – "little frog" – back in the strange early days of the Midnight Channel case; his old Persona used to call him that to tease him, to remind him with annoying regularity that he really hadn't come so far from his Shadow as he might sometimes think: that he was, occasionally, still the same scared and loudmouthed boy who wanted so desperately to be the hero because that would mean that he was strong, and a man, and in control of his own destiny.

Yousuke shakes his head.

Of course he's in control of his own destiny! He doesn't need some opinionated Persona telling him how to live his life. And he sure as hell doesn't need Chie sticking her short little bossy nose into everything! And he growls under his breath, as he swings open the door to the food court with an angry thrust of both arms.

This whole mess is all Chie's fault, not only for not knowing how to keep her mouth shut, but for being so aggravatingly thoughtless with her stupid ideas.

And this is Junes's fault, too, for being the store that nobody – especially Chie's father – wanted, and the reason why everyone thinks Yousuke is just another troublemaking ne'er-do-well from the big, scary city.

And while he's at it, this is his parents' fault, too, for not staying in the capitol when he asked – when he begged – them not to pull up stakes and move away from everything he understood, to this outdated, conservative, closed-minded little shit-hole of a town...

...where he's found friends, real friends worth fighting for and worth keeping safe...

...and a reason to take the headphones off every once in a while and listen, for the sake of those friends who have helped keep him safe and on-course and sometimes even happy, too...

...and a pretty, spunky whirlwind of a young woman, who doesn't just make his soldier stand at attention when he gets a whiff of her hair, but who makes him smile when he hears her laugh, and who makes him want to pull her into his arms when she starts to sniffle, and who makes his heart patter louder than any song he's ever heard or played when she puts her hand in his, or settles her head against his arm, or rises up on her toes to press her mouth to his...

He sighs.

Why couldn't Chie just let him handle things with her father? Why couldn't she just let him be the man, for once?

He steps out into the blazing July sun – still conflicted, still frustrated – when he hears it: his name, shouted across the rows of still-empty tables with their big orange umbrellas and uncomfortable white chairs.

"Yousuke!"

A groan escapes his lips before he even finishes turning around to look at Kuma, and he's already shaking his head and moaning at her, "Oh, what do you want?" when he sputters, as she hurls the bright blue-and-white head of her bear suit straight at him.

"Hey!" he shouts back at her, and he glances over his shoulder, to where the half-circle head has landed between two tables. "What the hell did you do that-"

She's in his face before he knows what's happening. "Why won't you fight for Chie-chan, kuma?" she snarls, her blue eyes flashing and her button nose scrunched up nearly to her fringe, making her look like an angry pooch.

Yousuke backs away from her – only for a second – and then leans out over her again. "You don't even know what you're talking about-" he starts to tell her, but she cuts him off, with a mighty shove with both her arms.

He stumbles backward, shocked to sudden speechlessness at her strength. She's small, like Chie, just a stick of a thing, really, especially with her thin shoulders and blonde head poking up out of that ridiculously rotund bear suit...but she's tough, too; she's more like Chie than not in that way, as well.

And, just like Chie, she knows just how to cut him to his quick: through all of his bullshit smokescreens and circular reasoning and snarling at scapegoats, to kick his ass when it needs kicking.

"You wanted to be a hero, kuma!" she shouts, her palms going flat against his chest again as she pushes him back another step. "That's what you said!"

And Yousuke doesn't want to cringe at those words, but he does. Because he knows she's right; he knows she's not lying about that part. Because no matter how much she dresses up in frilly skirts and sailor-suit blouses, or how much she plays with her hair like other little girls who walk in and out of Junes every day, Kuma is a Shadow. And Shadows never lie.

Because they can't.

In the next moment, Kuma drops her head, like a determined bull getting ready to charge, but that's not what causes Yousuke to freeze. Instead, it's the words she utters that fill him with a sharp and piercing shame:

"Chie-chan needs a hero, now, kuma," she rumbles, her voice a low growl as she stares up at him through her blowsy hair. "So you'll _fight_ for her, kuma," she says; it's not a request. She pulls a long drag of breath, her nostrils flaring with some emotion he's never seen from her before, something like _fury_, that makes his chest feel like it's going to collapse.

And then her lips quiver, ever so slightly, and she nearly spits her next words at him:

"Or else you _don't_ _deserve_ to be a hero."

He stares back at her, not noticing until she breaks the lock of their gazes with a quick blink that she's begun to cry, beautiful sparkling and slow tracking tears down her rounded cheeks. And then he blinks, too...and something in his lashes catches in the glaring sunlight, and runs down his face, as he suddenly understands the enormity of Chie's crazy, wonderful challenge.

This fight initiated with her father isn't for Chie, at all. It's for Yousuke. It's his chance to prove himself to her and her father and everyone (even Souji) that he's not just a laughable trickster or a misspoken clod or even just the old Investigation Team's blustering jack-of-all-trades.

This is his chance to be the hero.

So he steps toward the Shadow-girl – no longer conflicted, no longer frustrated – and mutters to her:

"Help me."

Kuma straightens up in her suit, her anger abruptly dissipated. "Help, kuma?" she murmurs, tilting her head to the side.

Yousuke nods, slowly, and reaches out to put his hand upon her slender shoulder. "Help me fight," he says.

"For Chie-chan, kuma?" the girl asks, as though prompting, and he nods again.

"For Chie-chan," he echoes softly, and in his head he hears Susanoo breathe an amused breeze of a sigh, as though in his ear:

_I suppose even a demon princess is still a princess._

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><p><strong>AUTHOR'S NOTES:<strong>

Since _**"1 More Chance!"**_ is written solely from Chie's perspective, there are a lot of "hidden" moments that readers never get to see, unless they're relayed to Chie through dialogue. This is one of those moments, that I had written a while ago but for which I just couldn't find the right outlet. I'm still not sure if this is the right place (because this site is feeling less and less friendly to my preferred method and topics of storytelling as time goes on)...but I just, well, _felt_ like posting it.

Many apologies for the crossover into "_you have to have read X to understand this_" territory. It's not my intention at all to hold readers hostage, but I thought those of you who _have_ read **_1MC!_** might enjoy this inter-scene_._

Thanks for reading, and for your feedback, should you choose to offer it._  
><em>


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